A white-haired man, stomach straining buttons on his orange silk shirt, pallid and skinny legs poking from beneath baggy shorts, maneuvered himself into a place farther down the bench, setting down a pint and a vast ploughman’s lunch. The scent of pickled onions tickled Dan’s nose. He hadn’t realized he was hungry until he saw the slab of beef, chunks of cheese and heaps of salad and relish on the man’s plate.
‘We might want to finish this discussion in my car,’ he said.
An emphatic and negative shake of her head didn’t do anything for his ego, but, he reminded himself, snubs came with the territory.
‘You’re meddling,’ he said neutrally. A change of approach sometimes worked.
This time she looked really angry but didn’t respond.
‘You don’t like Stroud but you’re hanging out with him.’
‘I don’t dislike Harry. And I’m not hanging out with him. I’ve had hardly anything to do with him since we were children.’
‘That’s not the impression I got from him.’
‘What’s he been telling you?’ A very straight stare this time. She was growing restless.
‘What has he been asking you? I got the impression he was pretty intense when I got here.’
‘Have you done a DNA test yet?’ Her mouth stayed slightly parted while she waited to see how he would react.
‘What DNA test?’
‘Was Pamela pregnant?’
Despite himself, he laughed. ‘You’re something else, Alex Duggins. You can’t ask me questions like that.’
‘Asking questions isn’t against the law.’
‘If I answered them it would be.’
She jabbed an index finger into the table and winced, trying to cover what she’d done.
‘Will you look at that,’ he said, pulling her hand up to look at the finger. ‘You’ve a temper there.’ A long splinter stuck out from beneath the nail. He pulled it out and held the end of her finger tightly. ‘It won’t hurt long.’
If she hadn’t been determined to keep on her tough face, she might have said more. As it was, she hissed through her teeth and said a tight, ‘Thank you. You knew I was asking about Harry’s DNA. You need to watch out for moles in your camp. A reporter was the first to mention it.’
For the first time in ages, he wanted a cigarette. ‘You could have been asking about anyone until you made yourself plain. And you know I couldn’t and wouldn’t tell you one way or the other.’
She looked a bit smug and didn’t say anything.
‘That sort of guaranteed-to-prick the ears comment is standard reporter fare. Must have been that smarmy bastard staying at the Dog. Like he could know anything, especially as early as he must have said it. He’s got the bit between his teeth and he’s not letting go. Praise be we’ve little other media interest so far and he thinks he’s a chance of a juicy scoop if he hangs around long enough. There’s no doubt he’s the gift of the gab and will do a fine job embellishing it all in the end.’
Her smile stopped him.
‘What?’
She had pretty teeth, strong but small. ‘Nothing, except I can tell you’re not fond of reporters and their ilk. That’s the longest soliloquy I’ve heard from you.’
He was a bigger man than to get shirty over having his emotions read. ‘You’re right. Most of them are scum … well, I suppose I should say some of them are. It’s always that bunch who manage to weasel their way in.’
‘You won’t share whether Pamela was pregnant?’
Avoidance was as good as a yes. ‘It isn’t in the cards for policemen to talk about suspects or victims, Alex. I think you know that.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ve got it straight that I came here, alone, to think. Sometimes it’s easier being on your own in a crowd.’
‘If Harry hadn’t joined you, some other man would have tried to.’ Now he was saying too much. ‘Do you want to change your mind about telling me what you and Radhika talked about?’
Her eyes sharpened. ‘I won’t make a big deal out of the comment about my being OK with stray men joining me. You don’t know me.’ Her blue black curls flipped in the wind and the simple green turtleneck and denim skirt were perfect on her. Relaxed and complimentary. A very nice little body.
Blast it all but his imagination would run away sometimes, no matter how disciplined he’d become. ‘Well?’ he said and cleared his throat.
‘Bill Lamb didn’t tell you about Harriet and Mary Burke being ready to take Radhika in when she leaves the hospital?’
Bill wasn’t on Dan’s gold star list today. He shouldn’t have left Radhika and Alex alone and neither should he have given tacit agreement to the Burke’s plan without talking to his boss first.
‘Well?’ Alex said in a parody of the tone he’d used himself.
‘Ms Malek has a right to go where she pleases, but we will have to look out for her after what’s happened. It won’t be so simple with people coming and going from that tea shop but I expect we’ll manage.’
‘You’ll have help.’
He raised a brow.
‘Tony and I, and probably one or two others, will make sure no one gets in and up those stairs unless they’re invited.’
Bloody amateurs getting in the way. ‘We’ll discuss that when the time comes. I’ve an appointment to talk about when she’ll be ready to leave the hospital. Tell me what you know about the Stroud family? If you would, that is. I know there’s an older brother with a commission, and the major is always around the Dog, so I’ve a fairly good idea about him. It’s been suggested the major’s wife’s a bit of an odd duck.’
‘So I’ve heard – about Mrs Stroud. Do you have a lot of local people suggesting things to you? I don’t know how you find so much out otherwise.’
‘Just part of my job to find things out,’ he told her evasively. ‘Have you had any recent dealings with Venetia Stroud?’
Alex reacted as if she hadn’t expected the interview to go in this direction. She was being careful. A farmer slowly propelled a herd of goats uphill toward the Mount and it was evident that she was glad of the opportunity to order her thoughts. The animals were mostly ginger and white, half grown ones staying close to their mothers and bleating complaints at being disturbed from a quiet day of grazing on some rocky hillside between their meadow naps.
‘When was it you went to the Stroud house? Which evening?’
‘Are you having me watched?’ she asked sharply, sitting up straighter. ‘If so, and if I went, then you know the answers.’
‘You’re not being watched. We don’t watch people without provocation. But you were there and the thought doesn’t give me a whole lot of comfort. I’d rather you not go back, at least until all this is over.’
Still she didn’t give him a yay or nay response to his query.
‘Alex, I’m being very serious here. Someone has died and someone was beaten up viciously. We don’t have an assurance the person who did these things has moved on, which is probably just as well because we need to catch him and get him out of circulation.’
‘I agree.’
‘Good. Is there anything you’ve heard, or seen that I might find interesting? Anything. Is there anything you and Tony haven’t told us? There’s nothing too small or supposedly unimportant to pass along. Someone’s life could depend on it.’ He would never say, ‘including yours’ but he thought it just the same.
‘We thought someone got in the house and tried to poison Bogie.’
Was he hearing things? ‘When?’
‘The sausages weren’t poisoned. It was just a silly prank to frighten me.’
‘You should have contacted us,’ he said, at a loss.
‘Did you find the bag I told you about?’
Her repeated deflections frustrated him. ‘You told us about the bag. We thanked you for your information.’
‘But you won’t tell me if you’ve found it, or the binoculars? You’ve asked other people about the bag. Do you know who the bino
culars belong to? There can’t be too many pairs like that floating around.’
Who had mentioned the bag and binoculars to her again? ‘Was Harry Stroud asking you about them?’ He could hope she’d either admit it or blurt out another name. He should be so lucky.
The focus went out of her eyes. She looked not at him but through him and started rubbing at the space between her eyebrows.
Dan O’Reilly held very still and waited.
Until his phone rang and he swallowed the curse on his tongue. ‘O’Reilly,’ he said into his mobile and listened. Bill didn’t waste words but there were still enough of them to take a minute or two. ‘I’ll meet you there,’ Dan finally responded and put the mobile back in his pocket.
‘Has something happened?’ Alex followed his movements as he got up and pushed herself away from the bench. ‘Dan, what is it?’
He could almost hear her fear.
‘You’ll find out anyway. We’ve got another body.’
THIRTY-FOUR
The ankle was stiffening and more painful. She’d overdone her first post-incident foray with a car.
Tindale Tower, or the Tooth as locals called it, stood out sharply on a high hill behind Folly, and above the Dimple and Alex’s neglected house. She glanced at the tower frequently while she drove the last few miles home to the village. It felt familiar and helped keep her mind off the discomfort under her bandage. It didn’t distract her from feeling sick at the thought of someone else dead before their time in the village.
She came in from the east along a rutted way, little more than a lane and dubbed Pilgrim’s Way by some long ago wag. The backs of outlying cottages, yellow in the sun, stretched in dotted lines behind clusters of farm buildings on variegated quilts of fields.
Who is it?
Dan’s body language had stopped her from asking, but she should have asked anyway.
Panicky fluttering crept beneath her skin. Sweat broke out on her forehead. ‘Who is it, damn it?’ she said aloud and her eyes stung. She was afraid, even though she wouldn’t put names and faces to the possibilities she feared most. There were too many of them and two that took her breath away.
There wasn’t a drivable street or lane behind the Dog. Alex drove to the High Street and made a half right turn to approach her pub.
One look ahead and she swerved to the side of the road and applied the brakes hard, with the wrong foot again. For a moment she rested her forehead atop her hands on the wheel. That hurt like hell.
When she lifted her head, the scene ahead hadn’t changed. People still milled about in front of the Black Dog and the figure she couldn’t fail to recognize had separated from the rest to run toward the little car.
Alex dared not drive on. With chattering teeth and every muscle jerking, she might run him over. Instead, she turned off the engine and struggled out of the car, in time to see Tony with his hair flying and arms pumping, bearing down on her.
‘Alex,’ he yelled. ‘Alex, damn you, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.’
Her mobile. She’d deliberately turned it off before she left that morning. ‘Tony, slow down,’ she called. ‘I’m fine. Just went for a drive.’ And she’d have to elaborate on that soon enough.
But he was alive … and furious.
‘Are you mad?’ He ringed her neck and stood over her. ‘You went for a drive? You can’t use your right foot properly. Lily said she lent you the car … she shouldn’t have. You take advantage of anyone who loves you.’
‘No, Tony.’ He was overreacting. He didn’t know what he was saying. ‘What’s happening? I don’t understand all the fuss. I only went to Stanton and had lunch at the Mount.’
‘Did you deliberately turn off your phone?’
She couldn’t stand like this much longer. ‘Yes.’ Why lie about the small stuff? ‘I wanted some peace and … and … to be alone, Tony. You of all people should understand that.’
‘And you included me with the people you wanted to get away from.’ Flat. His voice was toneless. The high color she had seen as he ran to her drained away completely.
‘May I sit in the car?’ she asked him quietly. ‘I think I’ve overdone it.’
‘You bloody bet you have, Alex,’ he told her through his teeth. Without another word he clamped an arm around her waist and supported her to the passenger side of the car where he unceremoniously deposited her inside. She could have cried when he knelt and carefully lifted her legs in front of her. As he got up, he rested his forehead briefly against hers.
‘I’d better get to the Dog and let Mum know I’m OK.’
‘She knows.’ He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. ‘She was standing beside me when you came around the corner and pulled off the road like a bad kid caught scrumping apples.’
That made her smile – a little.
‘Shouldn’t we go?’ Alex asked. Her heart beat too hard and fast.
‘You want to know why there’s a crowd down there?’
‘Of course.’ She turned to look at him.
‘We think someone else has been murdered. We don’t know who or where, but rumors are flying about a body and an unnatural death.’
‘I already knew.’
As expected, he gave her a blank stare.
‘O’Reilly. He tried to call me this morning for another interview, I think. I heard his voice and that’s why I turned off my phone. He saw me leave town and followed. Sneaked up on me at the Mount. He left when he got a call about “another body,” as he put it.’
Tony tipped his head back against the rest. ‘Who could expect to keep up with you? Did he say who it was they’d found?’
‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘And I was afraid to ask. He was in one of his moods.’
‘So you can work it out why I nearly lost it when I found out you weren’t around. And then, after Lily said you’d driven her car, I still didn’t know where you were.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.
‘So am I. Dad’s not at home and I can’t get him on the phone, either. I don’t know who got what information from where. I don’t think it would be a good idea to go for a head count down there.’ He nodded toward the jumble of people talking and watching the road in both directions.
A pair of horses cantered from the village green, across the High Street and converged on the Dog’s forecourt. Alex squinted to see the riders. ‘Heather Derwinter and Vivian, I think. If Heather doesn’t know anything, she’ll make it up.’
‘I want to know where my father is, and where O’Reilly went when he left you.’ Tony put on the signal and entered the road again. ‘I already went by Dad’s house. He’s not there and his car’s gone. Put on your seatbelt. I’m taking this around the back of the pub. You should go inside and put that foot up. I’ll take my Range Rover and track down some information.’
‘Make a U-turn,’ Alex said and set her teeth for an instant. ‘Either I come with you or I drive myself again. We won’t be so noticeable in this.’
A single glowering glance and he spun the wheel to head back in the direction from which she’d come. ‘Your mother won’t be amused.’
‘My mother doesn’t interfere with what I decide to do.’
‘Touché.’ He sighed. ‘I’m going to make a wide loop behind the village and get back to the parish hall. If the two big cats are away, the mice may get careless with their tongues. We need to be out of sight of the audience before we make the next turn.’
‘We can take the road that runs past Wilkins’ Dairy.’
‘Hillop,’ Tony said. ‘Good idea.’
He checked the rear-view mirror several times as they approached Hillop Road. ‘This’ll do,’ he said, and made a left. ‘Should only take a few minutes to get there.’
And he would expect her to tell him about being with O’Reilly – and with Radhika the previous night. ‘Harry Stroud followed me to Stanton, too,’ she said. That was something else she’d have to share and it felt a bit safer somehow
and made a good diversion. ‘I nearly fell out of my chair when he walked in. He sat at my table as if I should be glad to see him. Then he grilled me about seeing Radhika last night and kept asking questions I couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.’
‘He followed you?’ Tony sounded incredulous. ‘The man’s amazing. I remember him from school – an ass, and he hasn’t changed. How did he know you were with Radhika?’
The Fiesta’s right front wheel dipped hard into a pothole and Alex grabbed for a handhold. ‘He saw me.’
Tony looked quickly at her. ‘When? Where?’
She rubbed the sore nail where the splinter had been embedded. ‘He said he saw me go in.’
‘At the hospital? Sibyl Davis was the only one in the waiting room, wasn’t she?’
‘That was it,’ she said, excited. ‘I knew there was something I ought to be noticing. He wasn’t at the hospital so how could he see me?’
‘Sibyl could have told him.’
Alex considered that. ‘She could have. If he found out she was there he wouldn’t hesitate to ask questions. I don’t know. I can’t imagine Harry and Sibyl in a conversation.’
Uneven roads divided up the farms. They sped along too fast, dropping into holes and popping in and out of ruts. A really good rain would coat everything in miserable mud but with luck, the mud would be smoother by the time it dried.
‘Harry said the police are singling his mother out for attention. I don’t know if I believe it.’
‘She sounds unstable to me.’
‘I should never have suggested to her – or to Harry – that I was sympathetic toward him.’ They had almost reached Mallard Lane. ‘He came after me today because he thought I was on his side and if I knew anything that could help him, I’d say so.’
A van came from behind them and the driver leaned on his horn.
Tony moved over, tipping the Fiesta to a dizzying angle on a steep verge to let the white van pass. It turned down Mallard Lane.
‘SOCO,’ Alex said. ‘Oh, no. Where are they going? Not the church, you think?’
He had set off again and was really moving too fast this time, following in the path of the official van. ‘I don’t know, Alex. We’re going to find out.’
Out Comes the Evil Page 20